The scorching Brooklyn Nets can complete the sweep of a four-game road trip with a victory over the Detroit Pistons on Sunday.
The Nets have won five straight games and nine of their last 10 games, although their most recent victory did not come easy.
Brooklyn needed a Kyrie Irving 3-pointer just before the final buzzer to defeat the Toronto Raptors 119-116. Irving had never previously drained a buzzer-beating game-winner in his career.
He wasn’t supposed to take the final shot. Coach Jacque Vaughn drew up a play for Kevin Durant, but Durant felt Irving had the hot hand.
“It just comes with the trust that we’re building here,” Irving said. “Jacque had a play call that we were about to go execute, and me and K had some dialogue and we decided to run the play for me. A good matchup versus Fred (VanVleet). We just got the better of him that one time.
“Who would have thought I would have come into Toronto and hit my first game-winning buzzer-beater of my career? So pray that there’s more in the future, but I’m glad that we got this win.”
Irving finished with 32 points, while Durant had 28. Brooklyn also got a boost from reserve forward Yuta Watanabe, who scored 17 points in 21 minutes.
“He definitely has an inner peace and poise that you have to have at that situation, to not panic,” Vaughn said of Irving. “And he has an innate ability to get to his spot. He wanted to rise up, he created space with balance, and to be a guy of his size, to be able to do that, against bigger guys, smaller guys, (is) pretty innate.”
The Nets also collected victories over Indiana and Washington during the current trip, in advance of the first of three meetings between the Nets and Pistons this season.
Detroit is coming off a 122-113 home loss to the Sacramento Kings. The Pistons led 63-55 at halftime but the Kings took control with a 17-2 run at the beginning of the second half. The Kings outscored Detroit 38-23 during the third quarter. The Pistons crept within three points in the fourth quarter but couldn’t complete the comeback.
Detroit collected a 141-134 overtime road victory against Charlotte in its previous outing.
“The struggle was, we didn’t come out with any focus defensively coming out of the locker room,” Pistons coach Dwane Casey said. “We can’t come out with that type of disposition. Standing straight up, getting mixed up on matchups — all those things we did a good job of the night before, we didn’t do (Friday).”
Bojan Bogdanovic led the Pistons with 22 points but shot just 6 of 16 from the field. Rookie center Jalen Duren had 15 points and 14 rebounds, including six boards on the offensive end. Duren has grabbed 12 or more rebounds in each of the last five games.
“Just trying to outwork my opponent and get on the glass,” Duren said. “I know a lot of teams are starting to realize that I’m crashing (the boards) every time, but that’s just me trying to use my motor and get on the glass to help my team.”
–Field Level Media
